Welfare states and inequality: Institutional designs and distributive outcome

Comparative studies on inequality have suffered from severe methodological problems, which mean that issues related to the causes of cross-national variation in inequality remain unresolved. In comparative welfare state research, the preoccupation with expenditure data has also meant that the welfare state itself has remained a black box. By examining new comparative data on social policy institutions and income inequality among different population groups, this study provides a more precise empirical basis for evaluating different, and divergent, theories on the welfare state and equality. Three cases will be used as illustrations: family policy and child poverty, unemployment benefits and poverty among working aged, and old-age pensions and poverty among the elderly. The results suggest that the key for understanding the effect of the welfare state lies in the institutional design—in the level and distribution of social rights. The importance of the welfare state for social stratification deserves to be given more attention by sociological research in the future.     

The Relationship between Economic Development and Social Welfare: A New Adjusted GDP Measure of Welfare

Existing literature focuses on the issue ofpreparation of social welfare measurements onthe basis of an unadjusted Gross DomesticProduct (GDP). This paper extends this methodto incorporate cost-benefit analysis ofeconomic growth in a growing economy incalculating the adjusted GDP, termed as thecost-benefit (CB)-adjusted GDP. This approachis empirically applied to Thailand. There arestark differences between GDP per capita and CBadjusted GDP per capita rates for this period.This paper concludes that GDP can be used as anindicator of social welfare if the GDPestimates are undertaken within a cost-benefitanalysis framework.     

关注一孩政策后续效应：老年人晚年照料意愿及其影响因素分析

伴随着迅速的社会变迁,老年人晚年照料的被期待支持者与实际支持者之间出现了些许矛盾。基于CLASS 的调查数据,对老年人晚年照料负责的主体划分为四类,分别是正式支持、子代支持、非典型自我支持和协同支持。通过交叉分析和逻辑回归发现,虽然独生子女父母和非独生子女父母认为晚年照料由正式支持来负责的比例都不高,但是独生子女父母在该项的责任认定方面明显高于非独生子女父母。相比于非独生子女父母对于子代支持责任的依赖,独生子女父母对于照料责任的认定比较分散,呈现出正式支持、子代支持、非典型自我支持和协同支持平分秋色的特点。个人基本特征、经济状况因素、健康状况因素以及生活态度因素等变量均对老年人晚年照料责任意愿的认定影响显著。     

“东亚福利体制”的内在统一性——以东亚六个国家和地区为例

随着福利比较研究的逐步深入,东亚福利体制受到了诸多学者的支持。但另一部分学者对东亚福利体制究竟是否真实存在提出质疑。他们主要从体制差异、文化独立和体制分裂三个方面提出了对东亚福利体制内在统一性的挑战。本文在对中国大陆、日本、韩国、新加坡、中国台湾和中国香港六个东亚国家和地区进行分析后认为,认为东亚福利体制没有明显受到经济政治体制的影响,具有自己独立的福利文化,只存在内在的差异而非整体的分裂。研究进一步证明了东亚福利体制的内在统一性,并回答了东亚福利体制是否真实存在的问题。     

Popular Criteria for the Welfare Deservingness of Disability Pensioners: The Influence of Structural and Cultural Factors

Research has shown that several criteria underlie people’s opinions about the welfare deservingness of benefit recipients. However, it remains unknown which factors are associated with the emphasis that people place on such criteria. Using a 2006 Dutch national survey on the welfare deservingness of disability pension recipients, we study the influence of structural and cultural factors on people’s emphasis on three deservingness criteria: control, need, and reciprocity. OLS regression analyses show that people’s emphasis on specific deservingness criteria is strengthened by structural factors that indicate the possibility of resource competition such as the following: age, lower levels of education, unemployment, and lower income. However, actual personal experience with receiving welfare benefits weakens criteria emphasis. Cultural factors such as the espousal of views from the political right and the possession of a strong work ethic are associated with a heightened emphasis on deservingness criteria.     

居民对生态环境改善的支付意愿与受偿意愿差异分析—理论探讨与上海的实证

支付意愿和受偿意愿在意愿价值法（CVM）评估生态服务价值应用中呈现的违背理论预期的巨大差异,是CVM方法有效性受到质疑的主要依据之一,也是国际研究的重点。国内由于缺乏该方面的实证研究与理论探讨,影响了CVM在我国生态环境价值评估中的应用,由此势必影响到以此为基础的相关环境公共政策的科学性。应用CVM评估上海景观内河的生态价值,不仅证实了支付意愿和受偿意愿的分布差异,与国外研究成果相比,呈现差异更大、范围更分散的特征。通过计量手段,揭示了差异的一般经济学因素和我国的特殊影响因素,如户籍因素、收入差距等,并建议：在中国应用CVM中选择价值测度指标时,应充分考虑收入差距、地区差距、二元结构等我国转型经济的特征。     

独生子女伤残状况及对计生扶助政策的需求分析

利用苏州市吴中区独生子女伤残家庭的问卷调查和小组访谈资料,对独生子女伤残状况及这些家庭对计生扶助政策的需求进行实证分析。结果表明：近七成独生子女伤残时的年龄在15岁以下,其中先天残疾占51．3％;重度残疾比例超过五分之二;智力残疾和精神残疾独生子女合计占比近六成;残疾后生活难以自理者比重接近三成。进一步分析发现,独生子女伤残家庭最需得到的帮扶依次为：为独生子女伤残家庭提供生活补助、为伤残独生子女父母提供养老保险补贴、提高独生子女家庭的医疗救助水平。基于以上结论．提出相关对策建议。     

The Role of Openness to Experience and Sexual Identity Formation in LGB Individuals: Implications for Mental Health

Openness to experience has been shown to have a positive impact on mental health in the general population, but there is a dearth of information both about why this is the case and on LGB populations in this area. The present article explores the relationship between openness to experience, LGB identity development, and mental health. The results revealed a full mediation model, where the positive impact of openness to experience on mental health is fully mediated by positive LGB identity development. Limitations and implications are discussed.     

Parenthood and Quality of Life in Old Age: The Role of Individual Resources,the Welfare State and the Economy

Although the notion of ‘Social Europe’ can refer to different principles and policy options, most research narrows down attitudes towards Social Europe to a unidimensional construct. In this study, we instead propose a multi-dimensional approach, and contribute to the literature in three ways. First, we elaborate the notion of ‘Social Europe’ conceptually, and distinguish between the decision-making level for social policy, European social citizenship, harmonization, member-state solidarity and interpersonal solidarity. Second, analysing the 2014 Belgian National Election Study by means of confirmatory factor analysis we evidence that citizens indeed have distinct attitudes towards the policy principles and instruments of Social Europe. Although these attitudinal dimensions are interrelated, they cannot be reduced to a single Social Europe factor, meaning that citizens differentiate in their attitudes between various aspects of Social Europe. In addition, our research indicates that member-state solidarity is the primary aspect of Social Europe in public opinion, whereas the feature that has received most scholarly attention in empirical research to date—the preferred decision-making level for social policy—cannot be considered as a key component of attitudes towards Social Europe. Third, we investigate whether citizens with different educational levels conceptualize Social Europe similarly using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis. Results indicate that the attitudinal factor structure of Social Europe is largely equivalent among lower and higher-educated citizens.     

浅谈大学生性健康教育

当前大学生存在的性问题逐年增多,如何对这些实质性性问题进行教育,本文进行了一定分析并提出了相应对策。     

Mothers,fathers and children after divorce: The role of institutions

In recent years the increase in the divorce rate in many advanced countries and the predominance of female-headed families among the poor has generated much interest in the relationship between divorce and the welfare of mothers and children. In this paper I will review a small body of economic literature which has been recently developed in order to analyze the economic consequence of divorce on the welfare of fathers, mothers and children under alternative behavioral assumptions. Important economic and econometric issues arise from an analysis of welfare in non intact households as compared with intact households. In particular the focus is on the role that institutions play in post-divorce arrangements and important implications concerning policies for child support, custody, and visitation.Presidential Address of the Annual Congress of ESPE2000 held on June 15, 2000 in Bonn. I would like to thank Christopher Flinn, Rocio Ribero, Maristella Botticini and two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. Responsible editor: Alessandro Cigno.     

外部性内在化与城镇独生子女父母年老奖励补助政策

有关生育的奖励处罚政策实质上是使生育行为外部性内在化的一种努力。城镇独生子女父母年老奖励补助政策仅是地方性人口与计划生育条例的一项重要规定,尚未取得与农村部分计划生育家庭奖励扶助制度同等重要的地位。利用生育外部性和制度变迁理论,结合地方性条例的规定,分析现行政策难兑现的原因,提出自上而下制度创新的原则和具体建议。     

The Role of Religiosity in Satisfaction With Life: A Sample of Turkish Gay Men

ABSTRACT

In this study, we investigated the role of religiosity in satisfaction with life in a sample of Turkish gay men. A one-way analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) revealed that the religiosity had a significant effect on life satisfaction of gay men. Extrinsically religious gay men displayed significantly higher life satisfaction scores than both intrinsically religious and nonreligious gay men. Moreover, intrinsically religious and nonreligious gay men did not significantly differ in terms of life satisfaction. Based on the findings of the study, we concluded that the role of a committed religiosity in enhancing satisfaction with life as documented by the overwhelming majority of previous research was reversed in the case of Turkish Muslim gay men.     

Role of Parental Education in Schooling and Child Labour Decision: Urban India in the Last Decade

This paper uses household level data from National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO) of India, the 55th (1999–2000) and the 61st (2004–05) rounds, to show that even with a significant wage incentive for schooling of urban children, the school drop out rate and child labour incidence are not small over this period. The parents’ level of education plays an important role in reducing this tendency; thus establishing the linkage between social and human capital outcomes in the family. We also look at the incidence of harmful and manual occupations among the child labour. Mother’s education appears as the more important factor in the recent round in curbing the manual work incidences; supporting earlier findings that women’s empowerment (one important indicator of which would be female educational level) is indeed becoming instrumental in increasing parental awareness. Using a pooled data set, we have also analysed the changes in the impact of parental education on these decisions between 1999–2000 and 2004–05.

Transition to Parenthood: The Role of Social Interaction and Endogenous Networks

Empirical studies indicate that the transition to parenthood is influenced by an individual’s peer group. To study the mechanisms creating interdependencies across individuals’ transition to parenthood and its timing, we apply an agent-based simulation model. We build a one-sex model and provide agents with three different characteristics: age, intended education, and parity. Agents endogenously form their network based on social closeness. Network members may then influence the agents’ transition to higher parity levels. Our numerical simulations indicate that accounting for social interactions can explain the shift of first-birth probabilities in Austria during the period 1984 to 2004. Moreover, we apply our model to forecast age-specific fertility rates up to 2016.     

Access to Childcare Services: The Role of Demand and Supply-Side Policies

Different demand-side or supply-side instruments can be used in order to encourage the use of formal childcare. With the budgetary constraints of the last two decades, some countries have changed their childcare policy leading to the implementation of demand-side rather than supply-side instruments. The introduction of demand-side subsidies to encourage the use of formal childcare services was a major change in Belgium since, until 1988, subsidies were directly granted to childcare services providers in order to reduce their running costs. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the impact of both demand-side and supply side subsidies on the use of formal childcare by low-income families. From this perspective, we analyzed, on the one hand, the effect of the tax deduction instrument implemented in Belgium and, on the other hand, the effect of an increase in the provision of childcare places on the use of formal childcare services. We found that the choice of policy instruments is not neutral in terms of access to formal childcare for families belonging to different income groups. Indeed, while a higher supply of childcare places increases the probability of access for low-income families, the tax deduction can have a mixed outcome as far as access to childcare is concerned.     

Education and the Transition to Fatherhood: The Role of Selection Into Union

Although advanced education has been found to be consistently associated with a later transition to parenthood for women, findings about education and the transition to parenthood have been much less consistent for men, and no stylized fact has emerged from the literature. We argue that the inconsistency of findings for men is due to the fact that the selection process involved in union formation has been disregarded in earlier studies. We hypothesize that men’s educational attainment consistently and positively affects the transition to fatherhood via higher rates of union formation. We apply multiprocess event-history analysis to data from the Generations and Gender Surveys for 10 European countries. Our results show indeed a consistent positive effect of education on the transition to fatherhood, but it operates chiefly through selection into union. Failing to account for this selection process leads to a major underestimation of the salience of education for the transition to fatherhood.     

Wage Losses Due to Overqualification: The Role of Formal Degrees and Occupational Skills

Wage penalties in overqualified employment are well documented, but little is known regarding the underlying mechanisms. Drawing on new methods to measure the mismatch between jobs and qualifications, we test two explanations: formal overqualification and a mismatch of occupational skills, which have so far not been analysed. Using the National Educational Panel Study survey that is linked to German administrative data, we can objectively measure both types of mismatch. By using fixed-effects models, we confirm that overqualification is associated with a wage loss of approximately 5%, which indicates penalties when working at a lower requirement level. We find that some of this wage loss can be explained by a mismatch of skills between the current and training occupation. Further analyses show that mismatches of occupational skills explain the wage loss of formal overqualification for employees with vocational training. For academics, the two types of mismatch are unrelated. We conclude that, because of occupational boundaries and more specific occupational skills, vocationally trained people who are overqualified more often work in jobs with lower and different skill requirements. We emphasize that measuring both formal degrees and occupational skills and their mismatch allows for a deeper understanding of overqualification and wage-setting.     

劳动力流动对经济贡献分析——基于期权视角

劳动力流动是资源合理配置的一种方式,促进流入地经济的发展。流动人口的劳动力价值具有期权特征,劳动力流人地相当于持有一份买人看涨期权。本文以广东为例．对劳动力流动的期权价值进行实证研究,研究发现,该地区流动人口劳动力期权价值逐年增长,说明流动人口为该地区所创造的价值不断提高,其对流动人口的依赖性也越来越强。用工荒问题与大学生就业难问题并存．使产业结构调整及农村土地产权改革势在必行。     

中国老年人的居住安排与变化:2000～2006

基于中国老龄科学研究中心2000年、2006年两次全国性的调查数据,对我国老年人居住安排的特征与变化趋势进行分析。结果表明,虽然三代同住目前仍是我国老年人最主要的居住安排形式,但该比例正在下降,同时只与配偶同住的比例上升。考察不同特征老年人的居住安排特点以及老年人的居住意愿,以期为家庭养老、社区照料服务等方面的研究以及相关政策的制定提供支持。